Page 93 of Derailed
The cold against my skin stings and I wince at the burn. I’m angry at Coy, but I’m guilty of setting him off. Those photos of Sean and me hurt. I don’t want to be vindictive. I just want to befree.
“Jess . . .” Austin draws my name out until I meet his stare. His gaze is kind and sincere, “You don’t deserve to be treated that way. No onedoes.”
Trent steps into the doorway and braces his hands on the framing. Worry etches into hisbrow.
“I don’t want to ruin his life.” My admission only furrows their brows more, but it’s how I feel. Coy’s already killed his shot with Three Ugly Guys. If I press charges, it’ll only help ruin career opportunities in hisfuture.
“Coy wasn’t lying. He cheated on you.” Austin’s revelation gains my total attention. He shrugs as though he doesn’t really want to tell me. “He has a fewtimes.”
Trent swears and runs his hand through his hair. I don’t know him well enough to understand why Austin’s words have him soupset.
“What? Sorry, but I wasn’t gonna rat him out. You know how it goes, bros before . . .” He winces with an apologetic grin. “Girlfriends?”
“Austin, do you have a fucking point?” Trent’s glare lands on hisfriend.
“Yeah, I do.” Austin levels me with his stare. “Coy is responsible for his actions. We can’t let him get away with this. He’ll only do it to someone else. You’ve been treated like shit, but I don’t see you throwing punches and picking on someone smaller than you. There’s no excuse for that behavior.” He shrugs and checks his hand beneath the ice pack, working his fingers open and closed a few times before meeting my gaze. “If you don’t split now? Jess, that dude is fucked in the head. He hits you hard enough and you don’t get to wakeup.”
The doorbell interrupts our heart to heart. “Oh, the cops are here! I’ll get it!” Austin pushes off the counter, drops the ice in the sink, and struts to the door. “Fingers crossed there’s a hot chickofficer!”
Trent steps into the kitchen as Austin passes by. His stare is almost uncomfortable and heshrugs.
“He’s . . .” The words die on my lips as I don’t exactly know what tosay.
“An idiot. Mostly.” He grins. “But what he said was true. I hope you understand what Coy did is totally unacceptable. We don’t want someone like that associated withus.”
“What about the tour? What will you do?” I can’t imagine they have a backup plan in place, especially only days fromleaving.
“Fucking drummers.” Trent rolls his eyes. “We’ll find someone. We always do. I’d actually like to thank you for your scandalous escapades with Sean. Without them we would have had to deal with this shit while on tour. At least we have, what, four days?” He winks. “Bedo’s gonna lovethat.”
“I’m really sorry.” Iam.
“Don’t be.” His lips press together in a firm line a moment before he cocks one eyebrow. “But you might try and track down Sean before he reads about this on hisown.”
“Oh, um, actually . . .”Crap. Sean.He’ll be walking in that door any minute. I feel totallyunprepared.
“What?”
“Sean’s on his way back. He’ll be heresoon.”
Surprise arches Trent’s brow and his mouth falls open. “Tonight?”
“I, um, Iz checked himself out of rehab. I overheard Bedo and I thought Sean would want to know.” I don’t want Trent getting the wrong idea that I intended to stir this up. “It all happened this morning. I didn’t know anything about the tabloid piece. Iswear.”
“Shit.” Trent runs his fingers through the waves of his hair and tucks it back behind hisears.
I can’t help but feel responsible for the stress this causes him and the rest of the band. “I’msorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m just worried about Iz. I thought he was doing better. He sounded fine in his messages.” Trent’s gaze trains on thefloor.
“He calledyou?”
“Several times. I never pick up though.Shit.” He grabs his phone and touches the screen, searching for something. He presses a button and Iz’s raspy voice amplifies from thespeaker.
“Hey man, it’s me. I want you to know I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you or any of the guys. I understand why you don’t want to talk. I wouldn’t want to talk to myself either. But I needed to tell you I’m sorry, and I’m thankful. Playing with the band . . . it was everything, man. Everything. And this . . . it’s just not for me. I’m done, man. But I love you like a brother. Tell Lexi I love hertoo.”
“He left that on my cell last night. I meant to check it but we’ve been so busy getting ready, and with Sean gone, I just . . .shit!I should have picked up. Been encouraging him. I was just so angry, and then I didn’t want to deal. I figured he was safe there and I’d talk to him once he got out.” Trent’s shoulders fall with the weight of hiswords.
“It’s not your fault he checkedout.”
